1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to time computing devices, such as clocks, wristwatches, stopwatches and the like, and, in particular, to a time computing device and predictive method for determining a user's predicted race finish time.
2. Description of Related Art
Racing, whether car racing or foot racing, is a popular pastime in sport throughout the world. Typically, runners in organized foot races set specific time goals for finishing the race. These goals require that a certain pace be maintained as a target pace, and a runner will adjust his or her speed in an attempt to reach the specified time goal. Race officials typically help in this regard by calling out the elapsed time as runners reach certain intermediate distances, often referred to as splits, for instance, each three kilometers or each mile. Runners may then attempt to determine if they are maintaining their target pace and adjust their speed accordingly.
The process of adjusting pace and attempting to reach a goal in a race requires that certain mathematical operations be carried out in the racer's head. This proves especially difficult in the countries, such as the United States of America, where the convention is to use miles as the intermediate distances or split distances, even for those races which are an even number of kilometers, for example, a 5K, 10K, etc. Runners engaged in races set in kilometers would, for example, have to maintain a pace of seven minutes, fifty seconds per mile in order to finish the 10K race in forty-eight minutes and forty seconds. In this example, after finishing mile three, the runner is told that he has been running for twenty-five minutes and forty-one seconds. The runner must then determine in his head whether he is on target. In certain prior art methods, some runners may calculate in advance what their target times should be for two miles, three miles, etc., and commit these target times to memory. Further, some runners may even write these target times on their hand. However, even if the runner in the example is able to remember that he should have run the first three miles in twenty-three minutes and thirty seconds, he is therefore two minutes and eleven seconds behind his target. What does this imply about his finishing time? If he is able to run his target pace for the remainder of the race, he would obviously finish two minutes and eleven seconds behind his goal. However, if he is able only to maintain the pace he has averaged for the first three miles, he will finish in fifty-three minutes and twelve seconds, namely four minutes and thirty-two seconds behind his target. This type of calculation, which proves important to the runner, is virtually impossible to do in one's head.
In order to pace oneself, a runner may use a stopwatch, including electronic models which have the ability to measure and record split times upon the operation of a push button as the split distance is reached. These stopwatches or time measurement devices may calculate typical desired time readings, such as lap times, cumulative times, split times, average times, required times, distance histories and multiple participant times. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,624 to Pitt; U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,605 to Suga; U.S. Pat. No. 5,151,885 to Kasuo; U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,341 to Horiguchi; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,049 to Uzi.
There are also devices in the prior art that measure the number of strides a runner takes, therefore displaying the runner's progress through a race course. Certain devices have been developed which calculate desired time measurements based upon passive or active interaction with the runner's body. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,437 to Lowrey et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,004 to Loizeaux; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,154 to Suga.
Other devices have been developed, which include time calculations with certain predictive functionality. Also known are devices which indicate to a runner the rate at which he should be striding in order to maintain a target pace. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,041 to Smith describes a pacemaker in which the target stride rate may be adjusted based upon performance during the race and earlier splits. Other examples of these devices are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,110 to Ohira et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,446 to Ohira; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,290 to Kanzaki. Further, time measurement devices have been developed which employ the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, and are used to indicate distance covered and rate of speed since the start of a race or a split distance covered.
However, presently there are no devices or methods for these devices which would enable a runner to input a certain race total distance, for example a 5K or a 10K, and use his or her progress through the race and through the splits to predict the most valuable piece of information to the runner, namely, his or her finishing time.